Customers who bought the iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S in China complained that U.S. customers were able to receive a full replacement if phones were faulty, but Chinese customers only received repairs with replacement parts.

In a letter posted to Apple's website, Cook offered Apple's "sincere apologies" and described a new warranty policy for customers with iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S' in China.

Starting in April 2013, there will be an iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S service pack upgrade for all customers with a 1-year warranty on new equipment and replacement parts.

Cook said there are now improved repair policies for the iPhone 4 and 4S, a clear statement about these policies on the Apple website, a new feedback service for customers and greater training of Apple Authorized Service providers.

Cook said 90 percent of Chinese Apple customers were pleased with the repair services.

The following is the [translated] letter from Cook posted on Apple's website:

To our Chinese consumers:

In the past two weeks, we have received a lot of feedback about Apple in China repair and warranty policy. We are not only a profound reflection on these views, together with relevant departments to carefully study the "Three Guarantees", and also look at our maintenance policy communication and combing our management specifications of Apple Authorized Service Provider. We are aware that, due to the lack of external communication in this process and lead to the speculation that Apple arrogance, do not care or do not attach importance to consumer feedback. We express our sincere apologies for any concerns or misunderstandings this gives consumers.

In order to further improve the level of service, we are implementing the following four major adjustment:

Improved iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S repair policy
Provide a concise and clear on the website of the official Apple repair and warranty policy statement
Increase the intensity of the supervision and training of Apple Authorized Service Provider
Related issues to ensure that consumers can easily contact Apple Feedback Service
At the same time, we also realize that operating in China, and communicate much we need to learn the place. Here, we assure you, Apple for the commitment and enthusiasm indistinguishable from other countries. Bring the best user experience for consumers and satisfactory service is our ideals, our commitment, and it has been deeply rooted in Apple's corporate culture. We will make unremitting efforts to achieve this goal.

iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S repair policy improvements are as follows:
So far, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S repair this in one of three ways: as from the purchase date of 15 days found the problem, we will be entitled to a refund or replacement for consumers recalculated 1 year warranty period iPhone; 15 days after discovery problem, Apple will replace the part depending, such as camera modules or batteries; replacement parts also can not quickly repaired the iPhone, Apple will provide consumers with a part reassembled new parts, retaining only the consumers existing iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S back cover.

Nearly 90% of customers expressed satisfaction with our repair services, and consumer satisfaction is the most important criterion for Apple to measure its own success.

But others suggested that part of the re-assembly of repair almost replace the machine, so the direct replacement of a device will be more beneficial to consumers. Therefore, since April 2013, Apple iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S service pack upgrade for all 1-year warranty on new equipment replacement parts and replacement date recalculated.

Consumer iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider has been part of the re-assembly kit maintenance, we will replace them as whole and for maintenance after the iPhone recalculated from the date of repair year warranty. Apple's warranty system has been updated for the information and, therefore, affected consumers do not need to take any additional action.

Now, all consumers can see on our site clear and comprehensive maintenance and warranty policy terms and conditions.
We are pleased to provide consumers with information who wish to learn more about the after-sales service. For example, we have been to provide 2 year warranty for the MacBook Air and Mac computer motherboards and other major components. Likewise, the the iPad main components has been entitled to a 2-year warranty period, and other components for 1 year warranty.

We realize that our site before this is not clearly stated policy. Hope the following will answer all the questions about Apple provides services.

Apple is to make greater efforts to ensure that Apple Authorized Service Provider to follow our policies, and make every effort to provide consumers with the highest quality service.
Week since March 18, 2013, we made a new training materials for all Apple Authorized Service Provider to ensure that each staff provide services for Apple products is not only familiar with our policies, but also to grasp three guarantees "provisions and related policies. The same time, we have taken the initiative through face-to-face meetings and other forms of verification and to ensure that each Apple Authorized Service Provider have opened training courses to update the knowledge of the staff for the maintenance and warranty policies. We will make unremitting efforts and continuous monitoring of the performance of the Apple Authorized Service Provider to ensure that consumers can get the highest quality service.

Now, the feedback service-related issues is also very convenient.
As the consumers of the services provided by any Apple Store retail store or an Apple authorized service provider doubt, to Welcome www.apple.com.cn/support/service/feedback/ directly get in touch with us. Our goal is to consumers where to buy Apple products or receive services, users can enjoy world-class experience.

Heartfelt thank you to give us valuable feedback, we always harbor immense respect to China, the Chinese consumer is always the top priority of our hearts.

Then Google should be making steady progress into the Chinese market, not just with the Android OS. Just one big problem: Google doesn't play ball with Beijing's myriad censorship rules.

Then there's the issue of the Chinese government highly preferring homegrown solutions over foreign ones, simply because local entities are infinitely easier to monitor - and control. It gets more important as soon as you also start including bouts of carefully-cultivated government-sponsored nationalism violence against foreign businesses, and blocking off Falun Gong / Tibetan dissidents / freedom of speech activists.

Chinese political leaders do not want to lose their grip on the people, even as they embrace capitalism. If they do, you can expect a mass civil war to crawl out of the basement and cripple China from the inside.

quote: Sometime between December 5 and December 8 last year [2012], Google made a surprising decision that hasn’t yet been reported. They decided to remove a feature which had previously informed users from China of censored keywords (screenshot below). At the same time, they deleted the help article which explained how to use the feature. This indicates a new development in the relationship between the Chinese government and Google. Since Google moved its search engine to Hong Kong in 2010, censorship of its services such as YouTube, Google Plus and thousands of keywords on Google Search has been done by the Great Firewall, out of control of Google. This latest move was fully controlled by Google and can as such only be described as self-censorship.

Google also deleted the help article about this function. While disabling a feature could potentially be a result of technical streamlining, deleting a help article and so pretending that the feature never existed makes no sense. The article used to be available at http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer... but trying to view it now renders a “Page not available” message. Our test data shows that the article was still available on December 5 and that it had been removed by December 8. This is the same time that the function itself was disabled.

What could be the reason for Google to switch off their smart anti-censorship function and at the same time delete the help article about the same function? The developers who painstakingly constructed it only half a year ago must have screamed in protest. Since the removal of the help article could only be done willingly by Google, the only explanation we see is that Google struck a deal with the Chinese government, giving in to considerable pressure to self-censor.